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Bomb kills Afghan family including hours-old baby
KABUL (Reuters) - A roadside bomb killed a family of six, including a baby born just hours before, in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, local officials said.
The family was leaving a maternity hospital in Khost province in a pick-up truck when the bomb exploded, said a statement from the office of the provincial governor.
"A pregnant woman was taken by her family to a hospital last night at 10 p.m, and they were making their way home in the morning with their newly born baby when the bomb hit," said Zarmaeed Mokhlis, governor of Khost's Sabari district.
In southern Helmand province, a roadside bomb killed three and wounded two members of one family on their way to a wedding, hospital officials in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah said.
Roadside bombs are by far the deadliest weapon deployed by Taliban insurgents in the war against NATO and the government of President Hamid Karzai, and they have become grimly more powerful over recent years.
A Taliban spokesman said the group was aware of the Khost incident, but could not immediately confirm or deny involvement.
Civilians bear the brunt of the violence in the war, now in its 11th year. Last year, the number of civilians killed rose for the fifth straight year to more than 3,000, according to the U.N.
(Reporting by Mirwais Harooni, Writing by Amie Ferris-Rotman; Editing by Ron Popeski)
Man in Afghan uniform kills foreign service member
By SLOBODAN LEKIC | Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A gunman wearing an Afghan army uniform on Sunday shot and killed a member of the U.S.-led coalition forces fighting in Afghanistan — the latest in a spate of insider attacks that are fracturing the trust between NATO and Afghan forces.
Separately, officials said 11 Afghan civilians were killed by land mines on Sunday in explosions in the east and south.
U.S. Army Maj. Martyn Crighton, a spokesman for the coalition, said the service member was killed in the south. His identity and nationality were not disclosed.
Mohammad Zarak, spokesman for the governor of Helmand province, said the shooting took place in Nad Ali district after an argument between an Afghan soldier and coalition service members.
Coalition figures show at least 60 coalition service members have been killed so far this year and others have been wounded in about 45 insider attacks, where members of the Afghan security forces or insurgents dressed in their uniforms turn their guns on U.S. and allied troops.
The insider attacks have raised questions about how effectively the allied forces can train the Afghans to take over security of their own country in 2014 and beyond. Foreign forces are due to turn over security responsibility to the local military by the end of 2014.
A roadside bomb killed three men, two women and a baby in Khost province of eastern Afghanistan, deputy provincial police chief Youqib Khan said. He said their vehicle hit the bomb as they were returning from a hospital.
Three other civilians were killed when their vehicle detonated a land mine on the road between Helmand and Kandahar provinces, a government statement said.
Also in the south, two civilians who were walking were killed by a land mine in Khakrez district of Kandahar province, said Ahmad Jawed Faisal, a spokesman for the provincial governor.
The United Nations says homemade bombs continue to be the weapons that kill the most civilians in the war.
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Associated Press Writers Rahim Faiez and Mirwais Khan contributed to this report.
Kandahar, Khost Roadside Blasts Kill 14 Civilians
Sunday, 11 November 2012 by TOLOnews.com
At least 14 Afghan civilians including six members of one family have been killed Sunday morning in two roadside bomb blasts in south and east Afghanistan, officials told TOLOnews.
Eight civilians died when the minibus they were travelling in struck a roadside bomb in the Maiwand district of southern Kandahar province, provincial police said.
The minibus was travelling from neighbouring Helmand province to Kandahar early Sunday when it struck the bomb, killing all the passengers, police said.
In eastern Khost province, at least six civilians from the one family were killed in a roadside bomb blast in the Sabari district of the province, when their vehicle detonated the hidden bomb, district police chief Abdul Ghani.
He said that all the victims were from a family who were travelling home from hospital after one of the women had given birth to a baby boy.
Two children, two women and two men died in the blast.
Insurgents use improvised explosive devices to target local troops, but most of the victims are civilians.
In Khost on Saturday, at least one civilian was killed and 10 others including women and children were injured when a bomb planted on a bicycle exploded in eastern Khost province.
The blast, believed to be detonated by a remote-control device, took place in Sargardan area of Khost City when a police vehicle was passing through the area, provincial police chief Sardar Mohammad Zazai said.
Pakistan urges all Afghan insurgents to pursue peace - ambassador
By Michael Georgy and Hamid Shalizi
KABUL (Reuters) - Pakistan hopes to persuade Afghan insurgent groups, including the lethal Haqqani network, to pursue peace but worries resistance from political factions opposed to the Taliban could undermine reconciliation efforts, Islamabad's ambassador said.
Mohammad Sadiq, speaking in an interview, also suggested U.S. efforts would be better directed at engaging insurgent groups -- rather than attempting to defeat them by launching military strikes against their leaders.
Sadiq was speaking just ahead of an expected visit to Pakistan by an Afghan peace council due to give Islamabad a road map of how it wants its influential neighbour to help end the war with the Taliban, now in its 11th year.
"Afghans are much more united in wanting to join the reconciliation process than they were two years ago," he said.
"But still there are very important people who fought against the Taliban and are not still ready to talk and negotiate with the Taliban. And we are working with them."
Sadiq was referring to former members of the Northern Alliance, which toppled the Taliban in 2001 with U.S. backing. Some now occupy government positions or are in the opposition.
President Hamid Karzai set up a High Peace Council comprised of members of diverse Afghan ethnic and political groups to try to ease mistrust between the Taliban and its traditional enemies and forge a peace deal.
The task has gained urgency as most NATO combat troops prepare to withdraw at the end of 2014 and hand over security to Afghan government forces.
Lack of progress has fuelled fears of a civil war and some Afghans worry the Taliban will try and seize power again if no comprehensive political settlement is reached before then.
AFGHANISTAN WANTS PAKISTAN TO DELIVER ON PROMISES
Afghanistan's government has failed to secure direct talks with the Taliban and no significant progress is expected before 2014, a senior Afghan official closely involved with reconciliation efforts told Reuters on Friday.
Afghan officials have often seen Pakistan as a reluctant partner in attempts to broker talks, saying Islamabad is long on promises and short on action.
Kabul accuses Pakistan's spy agency of using groups like the Haqqani network as proxies to counter the influence of rival India in Afghanistan. Islamabad, which has a long history of ties to Afghan militant groups, denies the allegations.
"The prime minister of Pakistan had appealed to all insurgent groups to engage in negotiations," said Sadiq.
"We will encourage all insurgents. We will encourage the entire armed opposition of Afghanistan to participate in peace negotiations with the Afghan government."
The Haqqani faction, allied with the Taliban and operating on northwest Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, is seen as the most dangerous Afghan militant group, blamed for high-profile attacks in Kabul and other cities.
Afghanistan said in August it believed a top commander of the group, Badruddin Haqqani, had been killed in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan.
Pakistan has resisted U.S. pressure to pursue the Haqqanis, - seen as the most implacable U.S. foe in Afghanistan - arguing that negotiations stand a better chance of delivering stability.
"I think normally with insurgents one thing is very clear - that deaths have not weakened them because they replace commanders very quickly. They're able to replace them in a day or so," said Sadiq, suggesting the Americans should have learned from the Russian experience in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
"They have people. By killing their people you cannot weaken them. The Soviets killed 1 million, 2 million people. It didn't weaken the insurgency against them."
Afghanistan is known to want access to Taliban leaders belonging to the so-called Quetta Shura, or council, named after the Pakistani city where they are believed to be based, an issue the peace council is likely to raise.
An official with the council said it would also be pushing Islamabad to repatriate Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban's former second in command, in detention in Pakistan.
Afghan officials believe Baradar could serve as an effective conduit for negotiations with Taliban leaders if sent to Kabul. An Afghan official told Reuters that Pakistan had promised to hand over Baradar in September.
Pakistan denies giving sanctuary to insurgents and says no Taliban leaders are in Quetta.
Asked what Pakistan would be willing to do to push the struggling reconciliation process forward, Sadiq said:
"Expectations should be reasonable about what we can do because Pakistan and Taliban are not one party. We don't control them, we don't give them weapons, we do not give money to them."
Sadiq said Afghanistan should strive to make sure any government that runs the country should include all ethnic groups and parties to preclude any repeat of past turmoil.
"A representative government will automatically help in reducing the insurgency, reducing the tension among ethnicities, it will go a long way in preventing a civil war."
(Editing by Ron Popeski)
Question of US Troop 'Immunity' Will be Resolved: US Envoy
Sunday, 11 November 2012 19:54 Written by TOLOnews.com
As negotiations between Afghanistan and the United States get underway for a bilateral security agreement, US Ambassador to Afghanistan James Cunningham said he is confident the question of whether US troops can be prosecuted in Afghanistan will be resolved.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai and other leading officials have voiced their opposition to any security pact with the Americans which allows troops to remain in Afghanistan after 2014 with 'immunity' from Afghan prosecution should they commit a crime.
But Cunningham said it is not a question of immunity, but rather one of jurisdiction. And it is a question that comes up with any deployment of troops anywhere in the world, not just Afghanistan.
"There's no doubt that people who violate laws should be punished, so it's a question of the jurisdiction over individuals, not of saying somehow they are immune," he told TOLOnews in an exclusive interview.
"This is an issue every place where any country has its forces based abroad. It's not just an American issue, it's an issue for all of our partners in all the places where we operate... In all those places we have been able to come to an understanding of how we will deal with those issues and I'm confident that we will do that here."
The discussion over the security agreement "has only just barely begun", Cunningham said, with a lot of details to be worked through - a process he believes may take another year.
Seeking to alleviate fears of Afghanistan's neighbours over such an agreement, Cunningham said the aim of the US is not to have permanent bases in the region.
"There's a couple of things to make clear to any of Afghanistan's neighbours who are uncertain about what our intent is in the region. The first is that we are not looking for any permanent facilities here," he said.
"Our role here will be an agreed role with Afghanistan. We do not intend, as our forces now, we do not intend that our presence here will pose a threat to any country in the region and we never have."
Despite high levels of dissatisfaction with the war among the American public, Cunningham said the people are not averse to a continuing presence in the country but they want to see it reach its aims.
"I think there is still a great deal of support among Americans for what we're trying to do here if we can show them that we are succeeding and it's working," he said, adding that there is a sense of obligation and commitment.
"We don't want what we've achieved over the last years to be undermined and to be lost," he said.
However he acknowledged that just as the military commitment is lowered, so too the financial and human resources invested will be reduced, although there will still be substantial assistance.
"We have gone past already the high water mark for our development assistance, so it is coming down. As is the civilian presence," he said.
"Part of transition is reducing the foreign presence and the Afghans move into the lead, and that's as it should be. But transition doesn't mean we're leaving in any way. After 2014 I think, I know that we will still have a very substantial international assistance program in Afghanistan for years to come."
On the question of progress with the Taliban peace deals, Cunningham admitted that they are not progressing.
"There's not yet any clear way ahead," he said.
"I can't really get into that except to say that we have made clear what our views and intentions are. And we'll have to see if that process goes anywhere. That's all I am going to say about that."
He said that if an agreement could be made prior to the 2014 presidential election for the Taliban to participate, the US would "very much favour" that.
Herat Appeals Court Sentences Rapist Father to Death
Sunday, 11 November 2012 Written by TOLOnews.com
A father who raped his own daughter was found guilty and sentenced to death by Herat provincial Appeal Court on Sunday, but the final judgement will be made by the High Court.
According to court officials, all the evidence and claims against the man are valid and he was sentenced him to death after his daughter Zahra asked for severest of punishments for her father.
"Two months ago, while my mother was away from home, my father used his force to rape me and threatened to kill me if I told the incident to my mother," Zahra's lawyer said, quoting her.
Head of Herat provincial Appeal Court Abdul Ghafar Zubair sentenced the man to death but emphasised that the final decision remains with the sentencing of the High Court.
"According to item 5 of article 13 of Violence Against Women Act and considering article 148 of Afghanistan's Penal Code, I sentence this person who is accused of raping his own daughter Zahra to the severest punishment of death," Zubair said.
Meanwhile, the accused person rejected the accusations saying that the act goes against Islam and that he is not satisfied with the case.
"This only a claim, I reject all the accusations. This is against Islam," he said at the court hearing.
With violence against women and children seemingly on the rise, human rights activists have been criticising the government for not doing enough to punish those who commit crimes against women.
Jihadi Council Plans May Provoke Civil War: Senators
Sunday, 11 November 2012 20:54 Written by Saleha Soadat TOLOnews.com
If the Mujahedeen leaders in the Jihadi Council form military units and distribute weapons, Afghanistan may face more civil war in the country, Afghan Senator Gulalai Akbari said Sunday.
"Reports say that they are distributing weapons. If the Mujahedeen are taking out their weapons, they can bring Afghanistan to two more civil wars," Akbari said.
Several other senators said that the DDR program sought to disarm militia groups and the process of re-arming them should not be allowed to begin again.
"All illegal weapons were collected through the DDR program. The distribution of weapon should not happen again," second vice chair of Afghan Senate Rafiullah Gul Afghan said.
Some senators blamed President Hamid Karzai for the plans.
"Does Ismail Khan have a weapons factory to distribute them illegally? This should be investigated," Senator Hedayatullah Rehahi said.
Mohammad Ismail Khan, the Minister of Energy and Water, revealed plans of the Jihadi Council ten days ago to group into military units to help - as he says - defend Afghanistan after 2014.
"These leaders have started treason once again, Senator Belqis Roshan said. "How is it possible for Karzai that a member of his cabinet forms such a force but he's not aware, its really interesting," he added.
Meanwhile, Energy and Water Minister Mohammad Ismail Khan has rejected claims the Jihadi Council is also distributing weapons, saying it was a conspiracy against him.
"Herat's provincial spokesman showed a form to media which he claimed shows the distribution of weapons by the Jihadi Council. This is fake and a conspiracy against me," he told reporters.
Herat officials said that distribution of weapon in the province is unacceptable and serious measures will be taken against anyone found to be doing so.
Petraeus biographer made trips to Afghanistan
CNN By Phil Gast November 11, 2012
About four years ago, Paula Broadwell began her Ph.D. dissertation on Gen. David Petraeus' innovative leadership skills.
Some of the interviews were done via e-mail. Others were conducted as Broadwell occasionally ran with the physically fit four-star, including one time with Petraeus and his team along the Potomac River in Washington.
Broadwell decided to turn that research into a book and go to Afghanistan after Petraeus was tapped in June 2010 to replace Gen. Stanley McChrystal as the top commander in the country.
"We had a relationship before I went there as far as this dissertation was concerned, so it just took it to another level," Broadwell told CNN's Brooke Baldwin in February.
The relationship between Petraeus and his biographer has become the subject of speculation since he admitted to having an extramarital affair and resigned Friday as CIA director.
The affair came to light during an FBI investigation into a complaint that Broadwell was sending harassing e-mails to another woman close to Petraeus, a U.S. official said Saturday.
During the investigation, other communications surfaced between Petraeus and Broadwell, a married mother of two, according to the official.
The official did not identify the woman who made the initial complaint and did not know the nature of her relationship with Petraeus.
The FBI interviewed Petraeus in the course of its inquiry, said the official, who stressed that the CIA director was never the target of the investigation and his communications were never compromised. The official did not know whether Broadwell was interviewed.
CNN has not been able to reach Broadwell for comment. Her website was not operating Saturday.
Broadwell moved with her husband, Scott, to Charlotte, North Carolina, about three years ago, according to the Charlotte Observer.
Broadwell, who attended the U.S. Military Academy and served in the Army Reserves after active duty, quickly became a guest on TV news shows after her book, "All In: The Education of General David Petraeus," was published earlier this year.
In several appearances on CNN, Broadwell -- with her background in intelligence and counterterrorism -- was asked about U.S. policy in Afghanistan, the Syrian civil war and Iran's use of nuclear technology. She serves as a research associate at Harvard University's Center for Public Leadership.
Broadwell told Baldwin that she embedded with Petraeus' staff and troops in the field, sharing their hardships and risks. Broadwell spent months in Afghanistan interviewing Petraeus and others for her book, which she wrote with Vernon Loeb.
In January, Broadwell told Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show" that Petraeus is tenacious, has a will to win and wants to make a difference. "He loves serving. He loves to be in the arena," she said.
Just last week, Broadwell published on the Daily Beast a list of Petraeus' 12 rules for living.
"We all will make mistakes," read one rule. "The key is to recognize and admit them, to learn from them, and to take off the rear-view mirrors -- drive on and avoid making them again."
Broadwell met Petraeus in spring 2006 when he spoke at Harvard, where she was a graduate student, she wrote in the preface to "All In."
The author told the general about her research interests and he agreed to put her in touch with people studying the same issues. "I later discovered that he was famous for this type of mentoring and networking, especially with aspiring soldier-scholars," Broadwell wrote.
In the preface, Broadwell -- who earned varsity letters in cross-country and track -- said she wanted to see whether Petraeus could match her stride when they ran. "Instead, it became a test for me."
Broadwell's passion for physical fitness extended to her appearance earlier this year on "The Daily Show." In an effort to raise money for wounded veterans, she and Stewart engaged in a push-up contest.
Stewart and Scott Broadwell faced off against Paula Broadwell.
A game, but grimacing, Stewart made it to 38 push-ups.
Paula Broadwell, apparently ready to do more, stopped at 60.
Afghan peace envoy to visit Pakistan
By Indo Asian News Service | IANS
Islamabad, Nov 11 (IANS) Afghanistan's peace envoy Salahuddin Rabbani will arrive here Monday to discuss ways to expedite the reconciliation process in the war-torn country.
Rabbani, chairman of the High Peace Council, will lead a government delegation for talks with Pakistani religious and political parties during his three-day visit.
The Afghan leader is making the trip on the invitation of Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, Xinhua reported.
Kabul Bank to auction Palm villas
The National By Hadeel al Sayegh Nov 11, 2012
Afghanistan's special tribunal on Kabul Bank, a lender forced into bankruptcy last year, is seeking to expedite the sales of bank assets, starting with those in Dubai.
On the top of the list are eight properties on the Palm Jumeirah worth a total of more than Dh119 million (US$32.3m).
The move follows an order by the Afghan president Hamid Karzai that Kabul Bank's assets must be returned or sold in a month. "There was a high-level meeting demanding this issue must be closed as soon as possible pertaining to properties in Dubai," said Noorullah Delawari, the governor of Afghanistan's central bank and a member on the tribunal.
"The receivership has been trying to sell the Dubai assets through real estate agents, but only three have been sold. So in order to expedite the process, it has been decided that the properties will be auctioned through the Dubai Land Department," said Mr Delawari.
Three villas have already been sold: one worth Dh22.5m, another for Dh30.8m, and a house worth Dh10.7m. Eight will be put to auction by Dubai authorities, said Mr Delawari.
There are three other properties with mortgages against them that will need to be cleared, said Mr Delawari.
Kabul Bank experienced a run on deposits last year, after the revelation that shareholders had used it as their personal funding vehicle. The central bank, known as Da Afghanistan Bank, was forced to intervene and appoint a government official as the bank's chief executive.
According to a US report published in March, some $900m in loans were made to bank officers and insiders - including shareholders - with little or no collateral. The figure amounts to 94 per cent of all outstanding loans.
The central bank reported that among the loan recipients was Mahmoud Karzai, the brother of the president, who owned several properties in Dubai.
In June, the tribunal handed out 21 criminal indictments. Among the most notable figures indicted were Sherkhan Farnood, the bank's former chairman, and Khalilullah Frozi, the former chief executive. The charges included embezzlement, money laundering and fraud.
The settlement of Kabul Bank's Dubai assets and others abroad must be satisfied for Afghanistan to renew its credit programme with the IMF.
The IMF called for legislative revisions of the country's banking regulatory framework. Legislation introduced last year included a ban on any shareholder serving in a chief executive or chairman position.
halsayegh@thenational.ae
Afghan Artist, Admired Around the World, Yearns for Acceptance at Home
New York Times By ROD NORDLAND November 10, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - The past is a foreign country to Abdul Wasi Hamdard, one where they did things differently and he was an artist full of promise.
On the face of it, that past was hardly to be envied: he fled the modern-art-hating Taliban in 1996 and joined a few million of his fellow Afghans as a refugee in Pakistan, separated from his family. He lived alone in a small room scarcely bigger than his bed, with a window and an easel.
“I painted from 9 p.m. until dawn every day,” he says. “I was very happy then.”
The result was a remarkable output: 10,000 canvases over the ensuing years, mostly oils but also watercolors, establishing himself as one of Afghanistan’s most successful young artists.
When the Taliban fell in late 2001, Mr. Hamdard, then in his late 30s, returned, and Kabul’s galleries snapped up his paintings. By then, few Afghans could afford them, but the capital was full of foreigners passing through for whom prices as low as $100 a canvas (ranging into the low thousands for larger pieces) were a steal for fine art.
“You can find one or two of my paintings in every corner of the world,” he says.
The Norwegian and Indian Embassies were among those that held showings; for a time, the American Embassy even had a small gallery inside its compound, with Hamdards as a staple offering.
There is a photograph of him from the early part of the decade, vital and cheery in front of his work. He was often invited to art events, nearly always at embassies. His friend Karim Khosravi, a businessman and art lover, started the Bamiyan Gallery on Chicken Street and did well from his 30 percent commission on Mr. Hamdard’s paintings. A Swedish woman helped start a Web site featuring his work.
The money poured in steadily — not riches (his most expensive painting to date, “Wedding,” sold for $6,500), but in the Afghan economy, it was plenty, at least at first.
He moved into a large house with his seven brothers; none of them artists or professionals, they were taxi drivers and restaurant workers, government workers, shop clerks — people whose monthly salaries were often less than even an inexpensive Hamdard. He supported the entire family, and though he did not marry, his brothers did, until soon the house had 30 people including all the wives and children.
Mr. Hamdard stopped painting at home; it was just too crowded, he says. Yet he was honor- and culture-bound to remain with his brothers. According to friends, two of his family members suffered from mental illness; his mother had a stroke and was paralyzed. Their house collapsed one day, and he had to rebuild it, the expense devastating his savings.
He won’t talk much about it, other than to say: “If I had a studio and peace, I could do happy paintings. But I have a lot of problems.”
More recent photographs would show a man who has aged suddenly, pale and tired-looking, his dark hair receding rapidly.
He had long been a painter who worked in many genres, though chiefly expressionist oils with a strong sense of Afghan place, often done with a palette knife instead of brush. Later, his output became more abstract expressionist, twisted and dark.
“I first met Hamdard in Islamabad,” said Hedayat Amin Arsala, the senior minister in President Hamid Karzai’s government and his former vice president. “I sensed some vulnerability in him, very tormented somehow.” Mr. Arsala was a patron for several Afghan artists, including Mr. Hamdard, and has followed his career since; he is one of the few Afghans who own the artist’s work.
“He reminds me a lot of the painter in ‘La Bohème,’ ” Mr. Arsala said. Like Marcello, Mr. Hamdard has never married, though he will not say why exactly. For years, his brothers tried to arrange a match, but he spurned all offers. “I could never find a woman who understood me,” he says.
Many of what Mr. Hamdard considers his best paintings currently reside in the closet of a guesthouse run by a friend. They include “Brothers” and “The Fundamentalist,” and what Mr. Hamdard says he calls his best work, a painting he originally called “Twenty Years of War.” The war went on, the painting never sold, and he renamed it “Thirty Years of War.”
And as the war went on, things changed in Kabul. A number of high-profile Taliban attacks, including against embassies and other installations housing foreigners, led to greater security restrictions. Westerners no longer went so freely to places like Chicken Street. The Swedish woman left town, and the Web site stagnated. The American Embassy closed its in-house gallery.
Aggravating that trend, the numbers of foreigners began to decline with the approach of the deadline for a NATO withdrawal in 2014.
“This was a perfect opportunity for foreigners to be exposed to Afghan artists, an opportunity for both sides,” Mr. Arsala said. “But now they’re totally apart.”
The art business, which depended so heavily on the foreign community, declined markedly. At the gallery, Mr. Khosravi tried to persuade Mr. Hamdard to lower his prices because months were going by without a sale; he refused. He did not care, he says: “We have seen many bad days in this war, so it won’t bother me if we don’t sell.”
Every sale occasioned regret, anyway. “It’s like you say goodbye to a friend forever,” he says.
For a while, he responded to the sagging market by cranking out the sort of clichéd Afghan painting that has long been a staple of the tourist trade here — the buzkashi matches, Afghan horsemen chasing a goat carcass as a polo puck; tritely colorful marketplaces sans squalor; endless painted knockoffs of the Steve McCurry photograph of the green-eyed Afghan refugee girl. Mr. Hamdard’s most recent work looks painfully like that of so many paint-by-number Afghan artists.
Then one day two years ago, Mr. Hamdard just put aside his paints and stopped entirely. For all his relative success, he says, he felt like a failure in his own country. “How would you feel if your own people don’t admire your work?” he said. “I know how van Gogh felt: nobody admired his painting when he was alive. Now it is like I am cutting off both of my ears.”
Since Mr. Hamdard had sold mostly to foreigners, who were usually just passing through, he was little known and recognized in his own country, said Mr. Khosravi, who now manages to keep his Bamiyan Gallery open only by subsidizing it with a travel agency business. “His work has gone to the four winds, that’s the problem,” he said. “In Afghanistan, people don’t care about art.”
Mr. Hamdard’s brothers pleaded with him to go back to it, but he took a job at Kabul University, teaching drawing to undergraduates. It pays $140 a month.
“That’s the problem with my brothers: I know why they encourage me to paint — they want the money,” he says. “I want them to admire my art. If they ever once talked to me about art the way you have, I might change my mind.”
Abdul Wasi Hamdard is no longer a young artist. He does not want his precise age published, but says he is older than he looks. Perhaps not. About his decision not to paint, he answers like this: “Say you have a soldier, and you ask him, ‘Do you know how to fight?’ And he says yes. Then you ask, ‘So do you mind it when you don’t?’ ”
Martial Arts Women Fight for Rohullah Nikpai Cup
TOLOnews.com By Mir Sayed Saturday, 10 November 2012
As many as 37 women participated in the full contact Shin Gi Tai martial arts tournament in Kabul on Friday, fighting for the cup named after Afghanistan's martial arts Olympian Rohullah Nikpai.
Monisa Rustam Zada beat her opponents, all aged between 17 and 23, to take home the cup dubbed "Ambassador of Peace Rohullah Nikpai".
Nikpai is the Afghan taekwondo champion who has won two Olympic bronze medals – one in Beijing in 2008 and one in London in 2012 – the only two Olympic medals ever won by Afghanistan.
Six clubs participated in Friday's tournament organised by the Shin Gi Tai Federation which was founded in 2004.
Prominent lawmakers and other athletes were among the spectators who attended the matches, happy to give their support to the competition.
"The encouragement from the government and Afghan figures can make these athletes better in the future," Afghan MP Haji Mohammad Mahqiq said.
Afghan ambassador to Pakistan Omar Daoudzai said: "The government should provide more funding towards our youth sports to ensure they have standard facilities."
Nikpai, who also attended the tournament to award the medals and certificates, said the support from the crowd is a great encouragement.
"I try to do my best to bring smiles in my people face. I am very happy when they are cheering me," he said.
Central Provinces Protest in Kabul Against ‘Unfair’ Development
TOLOnews.com By Rafi Sediqi Saturday, 10 November 2012
Residents from Afghanistan's central provinces held a protest outside Kabul's parliament building on Saturday in opposition to what they perceive as unbalanced development where the central provinces' needs are being ignored.
Protestors from Ghor, Maidan Wardak, Daikondi, and Bamiyan provinces warned that the residents of their provinces will not take part in the upcoming elections if their requests are not met.
Of all the challenges they face in their region, the protestors said one of the most serious is the lack of good roads.
"We have come to face the national government so that there's more attention paid to the central provinces," protestor Din Mohammed Shakib said. "We have a lot of issues but we have put the ring road as the priority since the basic issues are resolved via the road. There has been no serious attention on it."
The protestors claim that six years ago the government assured them it was constructing a ring road by which the central provinces would be connected, but it has not happened so far.
Another protestor Hassan Hakimi threatened that residents will boycott the elections if action was not taken.
"If the government doesn't investigate our request being construction of central provinces ring road, most of the residents in these provinces will not take part in the presidential elections; we will not forget of having any legitimate government," he said.
Another protestor who said he was representing university students in Ghor Mohammad Sarwar Sarwari agreed that roads was the main concern.
"We have come to the national government so that they would hear us, and so we can inform the government of our problems. We have many problems in the central provinces but the basic problem is the lack of roads," he said.
Ghor MP Sima Joyanda said the protestors claims were fair.
"I have stated this request of central provinces' residents at the parliament's sessions. These people have the right to protest in front of the parliament; the government is obliged to investigate these people's requests which is the construction of the ring road," she said.
The protestors also warned that if construction did not begin on the ring road, their protests will become bigger.
State Electricity Revenue Increases 20%
TOLOnews.com By Zabihullah Jhanmal Saturday, 10 November 2012
The revenue of Afghanistan's national electricity company Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat (DABS) has risen 20 percent more than expected to 11 billion Afs (US$213 million) for the year, officials said Saturday.
DABS chief Abdullah Razaq Samadi said the company had forecast its revenue this year would be 9bn Afs, similar to last year, but it had already reached 11bn Afs.
Samadi credits the revenue increase with the modernisation of electricity networks, the spread of electricity to more provinces, the prevention of electricity cuts, as well as more people paying their electricity bills.
"We have collected more money than the amount that we aimed," Samadi said, adding that the money would be used to invest back into improving and distributing more electricity networks.
Much of the income will also be used to pay the electricity invoices to the countries supplying electricity to Afghanistan.
The state-owned DABS was incorporated in 2008 (1387) and replaced Da Afghanistan Breshna Moassassa (DABM) as the national power utility.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
KABUL (Reuters) - A roadside bomb killed a family of six, including a baby born just hours before, in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, local officials said.
The family was leaving a maternity hospital in Khost province in a pick-up truck when the bomb exploded, said a statement from the office of the provincial governor.
"A pregnant woman was taken by her family to a hospital last night at 10 p.m, and they were making their way home in the morning with their newly born baby when the bomb hit," said Zarmaeed Mokhlis, governor of Khost's Sabari district.
In southern Helmand province, a roadside bomb killed three and wounded two members of one family on their way to a wedding, hospital officials in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah said.
Roadside bombs are by far the deadliest weapon deployed by Taliban insurgents in the war against NATO and the government of President Hamid Karzai, and they have become grimly more powerful over recent years.
A Taliban spokesman said the group was aware of the Khost incident, but could not immediately confirm or deny involvement.
Civilians bear the brunt of the violence in the war, now in its 11th year. Last year, the number of civilians killed rose for the fifth straight year to more than 3,000, according to the U.N.
(Reporting by Mirwais Harooni, Writing by Amie Ferris-Rotman; Editing by Ron Popeski)
Man in Afghan uniform kills foreign service member
By SLOBODAN LEKIC | Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A gunman wearing an Afghan army uniform on Sunday shot and killed a member of the U.S.-led coalition forces fighting in Afghanistan — the latest in a spate of insider attacks that are fracturing the trust between NATO and Afghan forces.
Separately, officials said 11 Afghan civilians were killed by land mines on Sunday in explosions in the east and south.
U.S. Army Maj. Martyn Crighton, a spokesman for the coalition, said the service member was killed in the south. His identity and nationality were not disclosed.
Mohammad Zarak, spokesman for the governor of Helmand province, said the shooting took place in Nad Ali district after an argument between an Afghan soldier and coalition service members.
Coalition figures show at least 60 coalition service members have been killed so far this year and others have been wounded in about 45 insider attacks, where members of the Afghan security forces or insurgents dressed in their uniforms turn their guns on U.S. and allied troops.
The insider attacks have raised questions about how effectively the allied forces can train the Afghans to take over security of their own country in 2014 and beyond. Foreign forces are due to turn over security responsibility to the local military by the end of 2014.
A roadside bomb killed three men, two women and a baby in Khost province of eastern Afghanistan, deputy provincial police chief Youqib Khan said. He said their vehicle hit the bomb as they were returning from a hospital.
Three other civilians were killed when their vehicle detonated a land mine on the road between Helmand and Kandahar provinces, a government statement said.
Also in the south, two civilians who were walking were killed by a land mine in Khakrez district of Kandahar province, said Ahmad Jawed Faisal, a spokesman for the provincial governor.
The United Nations says homemade bombs continue to be the weapons that kill the most civilians in the war.
___
Associated Press Writers Rahim Faiez and Mirwais Khan contributed to this report.
Kandahar, Khost Roadside Blasts Kill 14 Civilians
Sunday, 11 November 2012 by TOLOnews.com
At least 14 Afghan civilians including six members of one family have been killed Sunday morning in two roadside bomb blasts in south and east Afghanistan, officials told TOLOnews.
Eight civilians died when the minibus they were travelling in struck a roadside bomb in the Maiwand district of southern Kandahar province, provincial police said.
The minibus was travelling from neighbouring Helmand province to Kandahar early Sunday when it struck the bomb, killing all the passengers, police said.
In eastern Khost province, at least six civilians from the one family were killed in a roadside bomb blast in the Sabari district of the province, when their vehicle detonated the hidden bomb, district police chief Abdul Ghani.
He said that all the victims were from a family who were travelling home from hospital after one of the women had given birth to a baby boy.
Two children, two women and two men died in the blast.
Insurgents use improvised explosive devices to target local troops, but most of the victims are civilians.
In Khost on Saturday, at least one civilian was killed and 10 others including women and children were injured when a bomb planted on a bicycle exploded in eastern Khost province.
The blast, believed to be detonated by a remote-control device, took place in Sargardan area of Khost City when a police vehicle was passing through the area, provincial police chief Sardar Mohammad Zazai said.
Pakistan urges all Afghan insurgents to pursue peace - ambassador
By Michael Georgy and Hamid Shalizi
KABUL (Reuters) - Pakistan hopes to persuade Afghan insurgent groups, including the lethal Haqqani network, to pursue peace but worries resistance from political factions opposed to the Taliban could undermine reconciliation efforts, Islamabad's ambassador said.
Mohammad Sadiq, speaking in an interview, also suggested U.S. efforts would be better directed at engaging insurgent groups -- rather than attempting to defeat them by launching military strikes against their leaders.
Sadiq was speaking just ahead of an expected visit to Pakistan by an Afghan peace council due to give Islamabad a road map of how it wants its influential neighbour to help end the war with the Taliban, now in its 11th year.
"Afghans are much more united in wanting to join the reconciliation process than they were two years ago," he said.
"But still there are very important people who fought against the Taliban and are not still ready to talk and negotiate with the Taliban. And we are working with them."
Sadiq was referring to former members of the Northern Alliance, which toppled the Taliban in 2001 with U.S. backing. Some now occupy government positions or are in the opposition.
President Hamid Karzai set up a High Peace Council comprised of members of diverse Afghan ethnic and political groups to try to ease mistrust between the Taliban and its traditional enemies and forge a peace deal.
The task has gained urgency as most NATO combat troops prepare to withdraw at the end of 2014 and hand over security to Afghan government forces.
Lack of progress has fuelled fears of a civil war and some Afghans worry the Taliban will try and seize power again if no comprehensive political settlement is reached before then.
AFGHANISTAN WANTS PAKISTAN TO DELIVER ON PROMISES
Afghanistan's government has failed to secure direct talks with the Taliban and no significant progress is expected before 2014, a senior Afghan official closely involved with reconciliation efforts told Reuters on Friday.
Afghan officials have often seen Pakistan as a reluctant partner in attempts to broker talks, saying Islamabad is long on promises and short on action.
Kabul accuses Pakistan's spy agency of using groups like the Haqqani network as proxies to counter the influence of rival India in Afghanistan. Islamabad, which has a long history of ties to Afghan militant groups, denies the allegations.
"The prime minister of Pakistan had appealed to all insurgent groups to engage in negotiations," said Sadiq.
"We will encourage all insurgents. We will encourage the entire armed opposition of Afghanistan to participate in peace negotiations with the Afghan government."
The Haqqani faction, allied with the Taliban and operating on northwest Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, is seen as the most dangerous Afghan militant group, blamed for high-profile attacks in Kabul and other cities.
Afghanistan said in August it believed a top commander of the group, Badruddin Haqqani, had been killed in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan.
Pakistan has resisted U.S. pressure to pursue the Haqqanis, - seen as the most implacable U.S. foe in Afghanistan - arguing that negotiations stand a better chance of delivering stability.
"I think normally with insurgents one thing is very clear - that deaths have not weakened them because they replace commanders very quickly. They're able to replace them in a day or so," said Sadiq, suggesting the Americans should have learned from the Russian experience in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
"They have people. By killing their people you cannot weaken them. The Soviets killed 1 million, 2 million people. It didn't weaken the insurgency against them."
Afghanistan is known to want access to Taliban leaders belonging to the so-called Quetta Shura, or council, named after the Pakistani city where they are believed to be based, an issue the peace council is likely to raise.
An official with the council said it would also be pushing Islamabad to repatriate Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban's former second in command, in detention in Pakistan.
Afghan officials believe Baradar could serve as an effective conduit for negotiations with Taliban leaders if sent to Kabul. An Afghan official told Reuters that Pakistan had promised to hand over Baradar in September.
Pakistan denies giving sanctuary to insurgents and says no Taliban leaders are in Quetta.
Asked what Pakistan would be willing to do to push the struggling reconciliation process forward, Sadiq said:
"Expectations should be reasonable about what we can do because Pakistan and Taliban are not one party. We don't control them, we don't give them weapons, we do not give money to them."
Sadiq said Afghanistan should strive to make sure any government that runs the country should include all ethnic groups and parties to preclude any repeat of past turmoil.
"A representative government will automatically help in reducing the insurgency, reducing the tension among ethnicities, it will go a long way in preventing a civil war."
(Editing by Ron Popeski)
Question of US Troop 'Immunity' Will be Resolved: US Envoy
Sunday, 11 November 2012 19:54 Written by TOLOnews.com
As negotiations between Afghanistan and the United States get underway for a bilateral security agreement, US Ambassador to Afghanistan James Cunningham said he is confident the question of whether US troops can be prosecuted in Afghanistan will be resolved.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai and other leading officials have voiced their opposition to any security pact with the Americans which allows troops to remain in Afghanistan after 2014 with 'immunity' from Afghan prosecution should they commit a crime.
But Cunningham said it is not a question of immunity, but rather one of jurisdiction. And it is a question that comes up with any deployment of troops anywhere in the world, not just Afghanistan.
"There's no doubt that people who violate laws should be punished, so it's a question of the jurisdiction over individuals, not of saying somehow they are immune," he told TOLOnews in an exclusive interview.
"This is an issue every place where any country has its forces based abroad. It's not just an American issue, it's an issue for all of our partners in all the places where we operate... In all those places we have been able to come to an understanding of how we will deal with those issues and I'm confident that we will do that here."
The discussion over the security agreement "has only just barely begun", Cunningham said, with a lot of details to be worked through - a process he believes may take another year.
Seeking to alleviate fears of Afghanistan's neighbours over such an agreement, Cunningham said the aim of the US is not to have permanent bases in the region.
"There's a couple of things to make clear to any of Afghanistan's neighbours who are uncertain about what our intent is in the region. The first is that we are not looking for any permanent facilities here," he said.
"Our role here will be an agreed role with Afghanistan. We do not intend, as our forces now, we do not intend that our presence here will pose a threat to any country in the region and we never have."
Despite high levels of dissatisfaction with the war among the American public, Cunningham said the people are not averse to a continuing presence in the country but they want to see it reach its aims.
"I think there is still a great deal of support among Americans for what we're trying to do here if we can show them that we are succeeding and it's working," he said, adding that there is a sense of obligation and commitment.
"We don't want what we've achieved over the last years to be undermined and to be lost," he said.
However he acknowledged that just as the military commitment is lowered, so too the financial and human resources invested will be reduced, although there will still be substantial assistance.
"We have gone past already the high water mark for our development assistance, so it is coming down. As is the civilian presence," he said.
"Part of transition is reducing the foreign presence and the Afghans move into the lead, and that's as it should be. But transition doesn't mean we're leaving in any way. After 2014 I think, I know that we will still have a very substantial international assistance program in Afghanistan for years to come."
On the question of progress with the Taliban peace deals, Cunningham admitted that they are not progressing.
"There's not yet any clear way ahead," he said.
"I can't really get into that except to say that we have made clear what our views and intentions are. And we'll have to see if that process goes anywhere. That's all I am going to say about that."
He said that if an agreement could be made prior to the 2014 presidential election for the Taliban to participate, the US would "very much favour" that.
Herat Appeals Court Sentences Rapist Father to Death
Sunday, 11 November 2012 Written by TOLOnews.com
A father who raped his own daughter was found guilty and sentenced to death by Herat provincial Appeal Court on Sunday, but the final judgement will be made by the High Court.
According to court officials, all the evidence and claims against the man are valid and he was sentenced him to death after his daughter Zahra asked for severest of punishments for her father.
"Two months ago, while my mother was away from home, my father used his force to rape me and threatened to kill me if I told the incident to my mother," Zahra's lawyer said, quoting her.
Head of Herat provincial Appeal Court Abdul Ghafar Zubair sentenced the man to death but emphasised that the final decision remains with the sentencing of the High Court.
"According to item 5 of article 13 of Violence Against Women Act and considering article 148 of Afghanistan's Penal Code, I sentence this person who is accused of raping his own daughter Zahra to the severest punishment of death," Zubair said.
Meanwhile, the accused person rejected the accusations saying that the act goes against Islam and that he is not satisfied with the case.
"This only a claim, I reject all the accusations. This is against Islam," he said at the court hearing.
With violence against women and children seemingly on the rise, human rights activists have been criticising the government for not doing enough to punish those who commit crimes against women.
Jihadi Council Plans May Provoke Civil War: Senators
Sunday, 11 November 2012 20:54 Written by Saleha Soadat TOLOnews.com
If the Mujahedeen leaders in the Jihadi Council form military units and distribute weapons, Afghanistan may face more civil war in the country, Afghan Senator Gulalai Akbari said Sunday.
"Reports say that they are distributing weapons. If the Mujahedeen are taking out their weapons, they can bring Afghanistan to two more civil wars," Akbari said.
Several other senators said that the DDR program sought to disarm militia groups and the process of re-arming them should not be allowed to begin again.
"All illegal weapons were collected through the DDR program. The distribution of weapon should not happen again," second vice chair of Afghan Senate Rafiullah Gul Afghan said.
Some senators blamed President Hamid Karzai for the plans.
"Does Ismail Khan have a weapons factory to distribute them illegally? This should be investigated," Senator Hedayatullah Rehahi said.
Mohammad Ismail Khan, the Minister of Energy and Water, revealed plans of the Jihadi Council ten days ago to group into military units to help - as he says - defend Afghanistan after 2014.
"These leaders have started treason once again, Senator Belqis Roshan said. "How is it possible for Karzai that a member of his cabinet forms such a force but he's not aware, its really interesting," he added.
Meanwhile, Energy and Water Minister Mohammad Ismail Khan has rejected claims the Jihadi Council is also distributing weapons, saying it was a conspiracy against him.
"Herat's provincial spokesman showed a form to media which he claimed shows the distribution of weapons by the Jihadi Council. This is fake and a conspiracy against me," he told reporters.
Herat officials said that distribution of weapon in the province is unacceptable and serious measures will be taken against anyone found to be doing so.
Petraeus biographer made trips to Afghanistan
CNN By Phil Gast November 11, 2012
About four years ago, Paula Broadwell began her Ph.D. dissertation on Gen. David Petraeus' innovative leadership skills.
Some of the interviews were done via e-mail. Others were conducted as Broadwell occasionally ran with the physically fit four-star, including one time with Petraeus and his team along the Potomac River in Washington.
Broadwell decided to turn that research into a book and go to Afghanistan after Petraeus was tapped in June 2010 to replace Gen. Stanley McChrystal as the top commander in the country.
"We had a relationship before I went there as far as this dissertation was concerned, so it just took it to another level," Broadwell told CNN's Brooke Baldwin in February.
The relationship between Petraeus and his biographer has become the subject of speculation since he admitted to having an extramarital affair and resigned Friday as CIA director.
The affair came to light during an FBI investigation into a complaint that Broadwell was sending harassing e-mails to another woman close to Petraeus, a U.S. official said Saturday.
During the investigation, other communications surfaced between Petraeus and Broadwell, a married mother of two, according to the official.
The official did not identify the woman who made the initial complaint and did not know the nature of her relationship with Petraeus.
The FBI interviewed Petraeus in the course of its inquiry, said the official, who stressed that the CIA director was never the target of the investigation and his communications were never compromised. The official did not know whether Broadwell was interviewed.
CNN has not been able to reach Broadwell for comment. Her website was not operating Saturday.
Broadwell moved with her husband, Scott, to Charlotte, North Carolina, about three years ago, according to the Charlotte Observer.
Broadwell, who attended the U.S. Military Academy and served in the Army Reserves after active duty, quickly became a guest on TV news shows after her book, "All In: The Education of General David Petraeus," was published earlier this year.
In several appearances on CNN, Broadwell -- with her background in intelligence and counterterrorism -- was asked about U.S. policy in Afghanistan, the Syrian civil war and Iran's use of nuclear technology. She serves as a research associate at Harvard University's Center for Public Leadership.
Broadwell told Baldwin that she embedded with Petraeus' staff and troops in the field, sharing their hardships and risks. Broadwell spent months in Afghanistan interviewing Petraeus and others for her book, which she wrote with Vernon Loeb.
In January, Broadwell told Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show" that Petraeus is tenacious, has a will to win and wants to make a difference. "He loves serving. He loves to be in the arena," she said.
Just last week, Broadwell published on the Daily Beast a list of Petraeus' 12 rules for living.
"We all will make mistakes," read one rule. "The key is to recognize and admit them, to learn from them, and to take off the rear-view mirrors -- drive on and avoid making them again."
Broadwell met Petraeus in spring 2006 when he spoke at Harvard, where she was a graduate student, she wrote in the preface to "All In."
The author told the general about her research interests and he agreed to put her in touch with people studying the same issues. "I later discovered that he was famous for this type of mentoring and networking, especially with aspiring soldier-scholars," Broadwell wrote.
In the preface, Broadwell -- who earned varsity letters in cross-country and track -- said she wanted to see whether Petraeus could match her stride when they ran. "Instead, it became a test for me."
Broadwell's passion for physical fitness extended to her appearance earlier this year on "The Daily Show." In an effort to raise money for wounded veterans, she and Stewart engaged in a push-up contest.
Stewart and Scott Broadwell faced off against Paula Broadwell.
A game, but grimacing, Stewart made it to 38 push-ups.
Paula Broadwell, apparently ready to do more, stopped at 60.
Afghan peace envoy to visit Pakistan
By Indo Asian News Service | IANS
Islamabad, Nov 11 (IANS) Afghanistan's peace envoy Salahuddin Rabbani will arrive here Monday to discuss ways to expedite the reconciliation process in the war-torn country.
Rabbani, chairman of the High Peace Council, will lead a government delegation for talks with Pakistani religious and political parties during his three-day visit.
The Afghan leader is making the trip on the invitation of Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, Xinhua reported.
Kabul Bank to auction Palm villas
The National By Hadeel al Sayegh Nov 11, 2012
Afghanistan's special tribunal on Kabul Bank, a lender forced into bankruptcy last year, is seeking to expedite the sales of bank assets, starting with those in Dubai.
On the top of the list are eight properties on the Palm Jumeirah worth a total of more than Dh119 million (US$32.3m).
The move follows an order by the Afghan president Hamid Karzai that Kabul Bank's assets must be returned or sold in a month. "There was a high-level meeting demanding this issue must be closed as soon as possible pertaining to properties in Dubai," said Noorullah Delawari, the governor of Afghanistan's central bank and a member on the tribunal.
"The receivership has been trying to sell the Dubai assets through real estate agents, but only three have been sold. So in order to expedite the process, it has been decided that the properties will be auctioned through the Dubai Land Department," said Mr Delawari.
Three villas have already been sold: one worth Dh22.5m, another for Dh30.8m, and a house worth Dh10.7m. Eight will be put to auction by Dubai authorities, said Mr Delawari.
There are three other properties with mortgages against them that will need to be cleared, said Mr Delawari.
Kabul Bank experienced a run on deposits last year, after the revelation that shareholders had used it as their personal funding vehicle. The central bank, known as Da Afghanistan Bank, was forced to intervene and appoint a government official as the bank's chief executive.
According to a US report published in March, some $900m in loans were made to bank officers and insiders - including shareholders - with little or no collateral. The figure amounts to 94 per cent of all outstanding loans.
The central bank reported that among the loan recipients was Mahmoud Karzai, the brother of the president, who owned several properties in Dubai.
In June, the tribunal handed out 21 criminal indictments. Among the most notable figures indicted were Sherkhan Farnood, the bank's former chairman, and Khalilullah Frozi, the former chief executive. The charges included embezzlement, money laundering and fraud.
The settlement of Kabul Bank's Dubai assets and others abroad must be satisfied for Afghanistan to renew its credit programme with the IMF.
The IMF called for legislative revisions of the country's banking regulatory framework. Legislation introduced last year included a ban on any shareholder serving in a chief executive or chairman position.
halsayegh@thenational.ae
Afghan Artist, Admired Around the World, Yearns for Acceptance at Home
New York Times By ROD NORDLAND November 10, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - The past is a foreign country to Abdul Wasi Hamdard, one where they did things differently and he was an artist full of promise.
On the face of it, that past was hardly to be envied: he fled the modern-art-hating Taliban in 1996 and joined a few million of his fellow Afghans as a refugee in Pakistan, separated from his family. He lived alone in a small room scarcely bigger than his bed, with a window and an easel.
“I painted from 9 p.m. until dawn every day,” he says. “I was very happy then.”
The result was a remarkable output: 10,000 canvases over the ensuing years, mostly oils but also watercolors, establishing himself as one of Afghanistan’s most successful young artists.
When the Taliban fell in late 2001, Mr. Hamdard, then in his late 30s, returned, and Kabul’s galleries snapped up his paintings. By then, few Afghans could afford them, but the capital was full of foreigners passing through for whom prices as low as $100 a canvas (ranging into the low thousands for larger pieces) were a steal for fine art.
“You can find one or two of my paintings in every corner of the world,” he says.
The Norwegian and Indian Embassies were among those that held showings; for a time, the American Embassy even had a small gallery inside its compound, with Hamdards as a staple offering.
There is a photograph of him from the early part of the decade, vital and cheery in front of his work. He was often invited to art events, nearly always at embassies. His friend Karim Khosravi, a businessman and art lover, started the Bamiyan Gallery on Chicken Street and did well from his 30 percent commission on Mr. Hamdard’s paintings. A Swedish woman helped start a Web site featuring his work.
The money poured in steadily — not riches (his most expensive painting to date, “Wedding,” sold for $6,500), but in the Afghan economy, it was plenty, at least at first.
He moved into a large house with his seven brothers; none of them artists or professionals, they were taxi drivers and restaurant workers, government workers, shop clerks — people whose monthly salaries were often less than even an inexpensive Hamdard. He supported the entire family, and though he did not marry, his brothers did, until soon the house had 30 people including all the wives and children.
Mr. Hamdard stopped painting at home; it was just too crowded, he says. Yet he was honor- and culture-bound to remain with his brothers. According to friends, two of his family members suffered from mental illness; his mother had a stroke and was paralyzed. Their house collapsed one day, and he had to rebuild it, the expense devastating his savings.
He won’t talk much about it, other than to say: “If I had a studio and peace, I could do happy paintings. But I have a lot of problems.”
More recent photographs would show a man who has aged suddenly, pale and tired-looking, his dark hair receding rapidly.
He had long been a painter who worked in many genres, though chiefly expressionist oils with a strong sense of Afghan place, often done with a palette knife instead of brush. Later, his output became more abstract expressionist, twisted and dark.
“I first met Hamdard in Islamabad,” said Hedayat Amin Arsala, the senior minister in President Hamid Karzai’s government and his former vice president. “I sensed some vulnerability in him, very tormented somehow.” Mr. Arsala was a patron for several Afghan artists, including Mr. Hamdard, and has followed his career since; he is one of the few Afghans who own the artist’s work.
“He reminds me a lot of the painter in ‘La Bohème,’ ” Mr. Arsala said. Like Marcello, Mr. Hamdard has never married, though he will not say why exactly. For years, his brothers tried to arrange a match, but he spurned all offers. “I could never find a woman who understood me,” he says.
Many of what Mr. Hamdard considers his best paintings currently reside in the closet of a guesthouse run by a friend. They include “Brothers” and “The Fundamentalist,” and what Mr. Hamdard says he calls his best work, a painting he originally called “Twenty Years of War.” The war went on, the painting never sold, and he renamed it “Thirty Years of War.”
And as the war went on, things changed in Kabul. A number of high-profile Taliban attacks, including against embassies and other installations housing foreigners, led to greater security restrictions. Westerners no longer went so freely to places like Chicken Street. The Swedish woman left town, and the Web site stagnated. The American Embassy closed its in-house gallery.
Aggravating that trend, the numbers of foreigners began to decline with the approach of the deadline for a NATO withdrawal in 2014.
“This was a perfect opportunity for foreigners to be exposed to Afghan artists, an opportunity for both sides,” Mr. Arsala said. “But now they’re totally apart.”
The art business, which depended so heavily on the foreign community, declined markedly. At the gallery, Mr. Khosravi tried to persuade Mr. Hamdard to lower his prices because months were going by without a sale; he refused. He did not care, he says: “We have seen many bad days in this war, so it won’t bother me if we don’t sell.”
Every sale occasioned regret, anyway. “It’s like you say goodbye to a friend forever,” he says.
For a while, he responded to the sagging market by cranking out the sort of clichéd Afghan painting that has long been a staple of the tourist trade here — the buzkashi matches, Afghan horsemen chasing a goat carcass as a polo puck; tritely colorful marketplaces sans squalor; endless painted knockoffs of the Steve McCurry photograph of the green-eyed Afghan refugee girl. Mr. Hamdard’s most recent work looks painfully like that of so many paint-by-number Afghan artists.
Then one day two years ago, Mr. Hamdard just put aside his paints and stopped entirely. For all his relative success, he says, he felt like a failure in his own country. “How would you feel if your own people don’t admire your work?” he said. “I know how van Gogh felt: nobody admired his painting when he was alive. Now it is like I am cutting off both of my ears.”
Since Mr. Hamdard had sold mostly to foreigners, who were usually just passing through, he was little known and recognized in his own country, said Mr. Khosravi, who now manages to keep his Bamiyan Gallery open only by subsidizing it with a travel agency business. “His work has gone to the four winds, that’s the problem,” he said. “In Afghanistan, people don’t care about art.”
Mr. Hamdard’s brothers pleaded with him to go back to it, but he took a job at Kabul University, teaching drawing to undergraduates. It pays $140 a month.
“That’s the problem with my brothers: I know why they encourage me to paint — they want the money,” he says. “I want them to admire my art. If they ever once talked to me about art the way you have, I might change my mind.”
Abdul Wasi Hamdard is no longer a young artist. He does not want his precise age published, but says he is older than he looks. Perhaps not. About his decision not to paint, he answers like this: “Say you have a soldier, and you ask him, ‘Do you know how to fight?’ And he says yes. Then you ask, ‘So do you mind it when you don’t?’ ”
Martial Arts Women Fight for Rohullah Nikpai Cup
TOLOnews.com By Mir Sayed Saturday, 10 November 2012
As many as 37 women participated in the full contact Shin Gi Tai martial arts tournament in Kabul on Friday, fighting for the cup named after Afghanistan's martial arts Olympian Rohullah Nikpai.
Monisa Rustam Zada beat her opponents, all aged between 17 and 23, to take home the cup dubbed "Ambassador of Peace Rohullah Nikpai".
Nikpai is the Afghan taekwondo champion who has won two Olympic bronze medals – one in Beijing in 2008 and one in London in 2012 – the only two Olympic medals ever won by Afghanistan.
Six clubs participated in Friday's tournament organised by the Shin Gi Tai Federation which was founded in 2004.
Prominent lawmakers and other athletes were among the spectators who attended the matches, happy to give their support to the competition.
"The encouragement from the government and Afghan figures can make these athletes better in the future," Afghan MP Haji Mohammad Mahqiq said.
Afghan ambassador to Pakistan Omar Daoudzai said: "The government should provide more funding towards our youth sports to ensure they have standard facilities."
Nikpai, who also attended the tournament to award the medals and certificates, said the support from the crowd is a great encouragement.
"I try to do my best to bring smiles in my people face. I am very happy when they are cheering me," he said.
Central Provinces Protest in Kabul Against ‘Unfair’ Development
TOLOnews.com By Rafi Sediqi Saturday, 10 November 2012
Residents from Afghanistan's central provinces held a protest outside Kabul's parliament building on Saturday in opposition to what they perceive as unbalanced development where the central provinces' needs are being ignored.
Protestors from Ghor, Maidan Wardak, Daikondi, and Bamiyan provinces warned that the residents of their provinces will not take part in the upcoming elections if their requests are not met.
Of all the challenges they face in their region, the protestors said one of the most serious is the lack of good roads.
"We have come to face the national government so that there's more attention paid to the central provinces," protestor Din Mohammed Shakib said. "We have a lot of issues but we have put the ring road as the priority since the basic issues are resolved via the road. There has been no serious attention on it."
The protestors claim that six years ago the government assured them it was constructing a ring road by which the central provinces would be connected, but it has not happened so far.
Another protestor Hassan Hakimi threatened that residents will boycott the elections if action was not taken.
"If the government doesn't investigate our request being construction of central provinces ring road, most of the residents in these provinces will not take part in the presidential elections; we will not forget of having any legitimate government," he said.
Another protestor who said he was representing university students in Ghor Mohammad Sarwar Sarwari agreed that roads was the main concern.
"We have come to the national government so that they would hear us, and so we can inform the government of our problems. We have many problems in the central provinces but the basic problem is the lack of roads," he said.
Ghor MP Sima Joyanda said the protestors claims were fair.
"I have stated this request of central provinces' residents at the parliament's sessions. These people have the right to protest in front of the parliament; the government is obliged to investigate these people's requests which is the construction of the ring road," she said.
The protestors also warned that if construction did not begin on the ring road, their protests will become bigger.
State Electricity Revenue Increases 20%
TOLOnews.com By Zabihullah Jhanmal Saturday, 10 November 2012
The revenue of Afghanistan's national electricity company Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat (DABS) has risen 20 percent more than expected to 11 billion Afs (US$213 million) for the year, officials said Saturday.
DABS chief Abdullah Razaq Samadi said the company had forecast its revenue this year would be 9bn Afs, similar to last year, but it had already reached 11bn Afs.
Samadi credits the revenue increase with the modernisation of electricity networks, the spread of electricity to more provinces, the prevention of electricity cuts, as well as more people paying their electricity bills.
"We have collected more money than the amount that we aimed," Samadi said, adding that the money would be used to invest back into improving and distributing more electricity networks.
Much of the income will also be used to pay the electricity invoices to the countries supplying electricity to Afghanistan.
The state-owned DABS was incorporated in 2008 (1387) and replaced Da Afghanistan Breshna Moassassa (DABM) as the national power utility.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com